GrandCentral: Two numbers for life?

Services

You remember Grand Central, right? You know, the company that worked its way into Google’s empire by offering "One Number For Life" that routes its way to any combination of cell phones, landlines, and more? Well it seems that the "one number" offer might have been a bit misleading. Reports are surfacing that Google/GrandCentral is forcing some customers to change their numbers. The company has apparently been sending out emails to affected users with the following text: "a very small number of users have been assigned numbers that are not performing to our quality standards and are being replaced with higher quality services."  To be fair, they appear to be doing their best to accommodate the disenfranchised, offering to pay for new business cards and the like, but it might not be enough. Phone numbers are an indispensable part of our day to day lives, and changing them, especially numbers used for any sort of business, can have disastrous effects. Imagine if Verizon unilaterally decided to alter their subscribers cell numbers? The world would revolt. This is, unfortunately, yet another reason why we here at BGR suggest that you stay away from any sort of start-up service that offers to replace something as significant as your phone numbers. Not good at all, guys.

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3 Comments
  • todd

    the only thing stopping me from using the service is that they dont support any text message features. I want someone to be able to text me, mms me, and I want to be able to see it on my phone, see it online and rely online. Make it happen Google.

    Thanks.

  • ygarak

    it’s free. verizon isn’t. it’s beta. verizon isn’t. this is a good idea for people who are using it. if you use the product as advertised, you can’t be too upset about a hiccup that is intended to improve service.

  • Coen Ran

    You wrote: “Imagine if Verizon unilaterally decided to alter their subscribers cell numbers? The world would revolt.”

    Frankly, I doubt if the news made it to me in the Netherlands. But presumably the people of Nepal would send an angry letter.

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